Friday, December 31, 2010

The EPA has listed a warning for today's air quality-- poor. All of the Connecticut River Valley is affected, including Springfield. Fine particulate matter is expected to exceed 35 micrograms per cubic meter averaged over 24 hours. Besides reducing outdoor exposure for all people, the EPA suggests "The public can help reduce pollution by taking steps including: using public transportation, car pooling and/or combining trips; avoiding idling of cars and trucks; following EPA Burnwise practices for cleaner indoor wood burning; and avoiding outdoor burning."

I love burning wood. When I was a kid, I'd sometimes sneak off the the wooded hills behiind my house, make a little fire, and pop popcorn. Later, homesteading in Maine, I learned to scan for standing dead wood near my shelter so I could haul it home, cut it up, and burn it-- summertime in a natural firepit vented by turning back the canvas roof, wintertime in a little tin stove. In the Springfield house I lived in for thirty years, we'd have a fire in the fireplace every fall and winter weekend, and in the summer, camping at Nickerson State Park had to include a nightly campfire. I've breathed a hell of a lot of wood smoke during my life and I never gave it much of a thought.

That's all changed now, of course. Now I know that what you can't see or smell in wood smoke is the most dangerous of all-- fine particulate matter (FPM). I've learned this in the year and a half community battle to stop Palmer Renewable Energy from building a biomass incinerator in Springfield.

"the revised modeling analysis for fine particulate (PM2.5) documents that the cumulative impact of the high background concentration and the incremental emissions from the facility is 29.9 µg/m3 (of which x is attributable to the proposed facility), which is well below the current 24 hour NAAQS limit of 35 µg/m3. The cumulative impact is, however, very close to 30.0 µg/m3, the limit EPA is considering adopting in its pending revision of the PM.2.5 limit. MassDEP has supported tightening this standard in light of the evidence linking fine particulates to adverse health impacts in sensitive populations."

(Just a note: somehow, even though PRE's new proposal will burn 1,200 tons of wood a day, instead of their proposed 700 tons, PRE projects its emissions will be less than before, thus not pushing the plant's contribution to FPM above the 30 micrograms per cubic meter That may become the new standard next year.)

I didn't know it when we started fighting back against PRE's incinerator, But the New England Journal of Medicine had just published a study of Springfield and 50 other U.S. metropolitan areas in a January 2009, “Fine-Particulate Air Pollution and Life Expectancy in the United States”.There was a correlation between higher levels of particulate air pollution and decreases in life expectancy.The authors concluded “A reduction in exposure to ambient fine-particulate air pollution contributed to significant and measurable improvements in the life expectancy in the United States.”

So the truth is known; industry doesn't care; and state governments are still jumping on the biomass bandwagon even though the ride is getting bumpy.

Some small part of me wants to thank Palmer Renewable Energy for giving this community the opportunity to learn about one of the biggest, preventable threats to our well-being-- air pollution. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity but no thanks to the plant. Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield is waiting for the 2011 city council to take action and revoke the permit for Palmer Renewable Energy to build in our city. By now, the councilors have certainly heard the voice of the community. Will they heed us?

Go here if you want to realtime picture of pollution as to spreads over New England.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Not long ago I wrote about the death of John T.Williams, a First Nation homeless woodcarver shot and killed by Seattle police officer Ian Birk on August 31. Now the video from the officer's dashboard cam has been released, over the objections of Birk's lawyer. While the actual shooting takes place off-camera, keep watching to see Mr. Williams, who was deaf in one ear, saunter across a Seattle crosswalk. A few seconds later, he is dead.

An inquest will be held soon. A preliminary police finding has called the shooting unjustified.

Friday, December 17, 2010

This woman with her clothes
too small too short too thin
a decade out of style
holds her coat together
with a safety pin. She smiles.
No wind no rain
at least two hours of sun remain
before the dark door opens
and she wears her chains.

Earlier this week I posted a photo of bittersweet draped over an apple tree. The photo was taken on Verge Street-- I'd spotted it on my way to the pet store. Yesterday, I took a couple of other photos, also on Verge St.: people standing up to the banks and saying, No One Leaves!

Half an hour before the scheduled auction at his house, Carlos Pena managed to negotiate with HSBC/Fannie Mae to give him more time to restructure his loan. The message from all of us? We're tired of big banks pushing us around, destabilizing neighborhood and making people homeless!

If you want to get involved in this effort, here's how you can do it-- The Springfield Bank Tenant Association and No One Leaves Coalition are newly formed groups dedicated to standing up and fighting back against the banks to put an end to post-foreclosure evictions, displacement of our families and the destruction of our communities. The SBTA--a group of bank tenants (tenants and homeowners living in foreclosed buildings) meets every Tuesday from 6-8PM at HAP Housing (322 Main St.). If you would like more information about the campaign and the effort to fight back, please contact nooneleavesspringfield@gmail.comor call Liz at Arise, 413 734-4948.

No dollar amount was mentioned in the Springfield Republican article, but I've heard off the record that the amount of damages sought could be $125 million. I can see why this would make city council swallow hard. But there's something wrong with this picture.

Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield will be meeting this Tuesday at the Arise office to figure out where we go from here. But we're not done pushing Springfield City Council to do the right thing. We have some volunteer lawyers examining every aspect of the permitting process, zoning regulations, etc. and we will be getting back to City Council soon with the alternate legal opinions. We have a few other cards to play, also.

The state hasn't protected us and city council seems to think they can't protect us, either. No revocation vote was taken Monday night and while we were originally assured that that vote would take place in January, that vote is far from assured.

So here's what I'd like the Springfield readers of this blog to do: call your city councilors, both your ward rep and the at large councilors, and ask them: Why is PRE threatening to sue for a permit they claim not to need?

Just one more short note about something we need to think about, both short and long term: When PRE wanted to burn Construction and Demolition debris, no figures were available for the already existing levels of pollutants in the area. for much of the pollutants they would emit. But some of these figures are available now. They were measured at an air monitoring site in Westover. We're already in deep trouble.

Arsenic: 525% of the Allowable Ambient Limit

Cadmium: 810%

Formaldehyde: 2688%

Benzene: 718%

Many of these pollutants are produced by the simple action of combustion. Yeah, we need energy-- but why poison ourselves when there are better ways to get it?

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Well, this is not going to be the night I write a long post about what happened at City Council last night.

It's really been a lousy day.
A good friend of mine, who has been more in the hospital and long-term care facilities than out for the last year, was readmitted to Baystate.
The pipes burst in the the empty building next door, flooded their cellar, and shorted out Arise's telephone lines. We were without phone service all day and that will continue through at least part of tomorrow.
And of course I've been brooding about last night's city council meeting.

So a few thoughts:
First, I am incredibly proud of the people of Springfield. You filled city council chambers last night and many more of you have spoken out against Palmer Renewable Energy's 's biomass incinerator.
Second, I am astounded (and not thoroughly convinced) by the city council i being told that even if they do revoke PRE's permit, that it will make no difference-- that the council has no power! If this does turn out to be true, then we'd better create some new laws and policies in Springfield that can prevent harm being done to us by enterprises like PRE.
Third, it's not over.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Sunday, December 12, 2010

If you're old enough to remember when talking about someone's aura was not considered completely off the wall, then you may get a bit of satisfaction out of knowing that indeed we do glow with visible light-- and it's been photographed.

Scientist at Kyoto University in Japan placed subjects in a totally dark room 20 minutes every three hours from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for three days, with cameras sensitive enough to record single photons. Not only could they record light emanating from the subjects, they were able to record its rise and fall during the day-- lowest at about 10 am. and highest at 4 pm. You can read more at LiveScience.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

On Monday night, at Springfield City Council, Palmer Renewable Energy proponents will appear before the council to answer questions about whether or not their plant should go forward. Those of us who've been working so hard to stop this plant from being built and polluting our air have lots of reasons why the plant is bad for Springfield, but Springfield city councilors will only be able to legally challenge PRE's project based on difference between their original permit, granted by the council in 2008, and their new proposal for what developers want to build now. The council won't be able to take a vote to revoke the original permit on Monday, because PRE did not receive a full 14 days notice of the hearing. Still, it's a big step in the right direction. Whether we currently have a two-thirds majority of councilors in opposition is still not clear-- but hey, we're not done trying.

Yesterday I received an advance copy of the following letter from City Council President Jose Tosado, who has been noncommittal about the plant until this point . Mark down one more for being on the side of the residents of Springfield.

On Monday December 13 at 8 o'clock in the evenning the Springfield City Council will conduct a special meeting with representatives of Palmer Renewable Energy. The meeting will follow a hearings format where proponents and opponents will be allowed a set amount of time to speak.

When I voted for this project over a year ago it was based on the information available at that time which seemed like an environmentally friendly recycleing plant; however as time has passed there is much more information available and we have been provided with a mountain of information from citizens and public health officials about the negative impact that a bio mass plant located in a densely populated neighborhood would have on the health and quality of life for our residents. Springfield residents and our children in particular already live with their fair share of airborn pollutants. A new biomass plant with ffity five schools within a five mile radius will exacerbate already unacceptable health disparities.

Beyond the public health impacts, research shows that prenatal and early childhood exposure to airborne pollutants has an impact on brain development, student achievement, attendance and other factors that predict the overall success off the next generation of Springfield residents. Given our current education challenges, can we really afford to further stack the deck against our future generation of students?

I am grateful that our residents, community groups, regional health and environmental organizations as well as our Public Health Commission have mobilized to make sure that we have all the facts.

Over the course of the past several months I have had an opportunity to hear directly from opponents of this plant as well as from officials of Palmer Renewable Energy and based on all the information which I have recieved and reviewed, in good conscious I could not and cannot support this project.

Jose F. Tosado, President

Springfield City Council

Photo of Jose Tosado and E. Henry Twiggs, City Council Vice President, from Jose's website.

I owe an apology to Springfield Technical Community College and here it is.

About ten days ago I wrote a post on the experience of several women who attended a Rosa Parks Day event at the college. Within 36 hours I began hearing from several people who work at STCC and who told me that what I had written was far from accurate, and that I had offended many people who had worked hard on the event and felt I had completely misrepresented what had actually happened.

I did try to set up a meeting with the women who attended the event and those who told me my post was way off the wall, so that I could find out exactly what happened and how my post was inaccurate, because, after all, I hadn't been there. And that is exactly the STCCers' point: I hadn't been there, so how, if I hadn't checked with the STCC side of the story, could I possibly know what had happened?

My request for a meeting was turned down, but in my investigation I did find at least a couple of inconsistencies in the women's stories. I don't blame them at all, seeing as I am the one who wrote what I wrote, but in spite of not being able to confirm details through a face to face meeting, I no longer have confidence in what I wrote.

I am very sorry that because of my irresponsibility, in failing to check my facts and to get both sides of the story, I hurt a number of good people whose only intent was to have a wonderful celebration for Rosa Parks and the students of STCC. I hope they accept this heartfelt apology.

Ever since Einstein's own evidence forced him to abandon the idea of an eternal universe, some people have asked, What existed before the universe was born? Once answer might be another universe, which makes some kind of deep sense to me, even if it sparks other questions-- but doesn't it seem impossible for evidence of previous universes to exist, if you think that one entire universe must disappear before another can be born?

Well, guess what? A hint may actually exist. Wired Magazine has a story about theoretical physicist Roger Penrose and his team of researchers' work.

The researchers base their findings on circular patterns they discovered in the cosmic microwave background, the ubiquitous microwave glow left over from the Big Bang. The circular features indicate that the cosmos itself circles through epochs of endings and beginnings, Penrose and Gurzadyan assert. The researchers describe their controversial findings in an article posted at arXiv.org on November 17.

The circular features are regions where tiny temperature variations in the otherwise uniform microwave background are smaller than average. Those features, Penrose said, cannot be explained by the highly successful inflation theory, which posits that the infant cosmos underwent an enormous growth spurt, ballooning from something on the scale of an atom to the size of a grapefruit during the universe’s first tiny fraction of a second. Inflation would either erase such patterns or could not easily generate them.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

I like being busy but I must say that the last two weeks have really been over the top. Just to get caught up with my readers, I'm tossing out a mix of personal and political in this post, then I can be back on track..

First, it is quite likely that some time within the week, I''ll be posting an apology to Springfield Technical Community College for any information that I incorrectly portrayed in my post about their Rosa Parks Day event. That post is no longer on my blog, but I'll probably be putting it back up so there is some context to my apology. I am waiting for a response to my request for a meeting before I apologize, so that I can be sure of just what I got wrong. Meanwhile, one STCCer called me up to yell at me, and I've received emails from two different STCCers, one challenging my political integrity and the other blasting me for my lack of professionalism. Well, I've never said I don't make mistakes, so I'll keep you updated on this one.

Second, I'm pretty sure the feral cat I've been feeding is dead. I was on my way out of town on Sunday and saw a gray cat dead by the side of the road only about a block from the abandoned house where it hangs out. I was telling my older daughter about this, and she took that opportunity to reiterate her belief that it's bad to feed ferals, that instead, I should have captured the cat and taken it to some place where it could be humanely euthanized. Once again, I could be wrong and she could be right, but that wasn't the choice that I made.

So that's the bad stuff.

Good stuff: we had an Open House/Holiday Party at Arise this evening, and I give it a 9.5 on a scale of 1 to 10. Lots of folks came, we had plenty of food, Bill brought a guitar and led kids in a sing-a-long, and we had enough prizes from the dollar store to make just about everyone happy. One sad thing: almost everyone I talked to tonight had recently lost a job or was looking desperately to find one. There won't be much under the Christmas tree for most of these kids. But tonight we were family.

More good stuff: while we were getting ready for the party, Springfield City Councilors Mike Fenton, John Lysak and Melvin Edwards were holding a press conference with representatives from various neighborhood councils, saying that on Monday, they plan to reconsider Palmer Renewable Energy's permit to build a biomass incinerator in Springfield. Eighteen months of community organizing may be starting to pay off! You can read Peter Goonan's story on MassLive. My favorite quote is Ward Two Mike Fenton saying,
“This is an issue second to none on my agenda.” I don't know yet if the work of Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield is finished, but I know we're giving it our all. If you don't want to live in a city with air even more polluted than it already is, get yourself down to City Council Monday night and help get some of these councilors off the fence.

To add to the opposition, the presidents of Springfield, American International and Western New England Colleges have come out against the plant and have let Mayor Sarno and Council President Jose Tosado know so in a letter!

I've been a community organizer for a long time, and my main interest has always been the rights-- and the empowerment-- of poor people. I suppose being poor myself hasn't hurt my allegiance to the cause. But the most successful campaigns Arise has been involved in are those that affect everybody-- poor people most of all, but ultinately all of us. Ward representation is the best example. The poorest areas of Springfield were never successful in electing a city councilor under the at large system. And yet, no neighborhood was represented under the old system. Only ward representation could change that, and everyone in the city has benefited. And now, it's the ward councilors who are leading the way in protecting this community's health. Win or lose, I'm proud of them .

The ugly: Four doors down from Arise's storefront is a Christian coffeehouse called Holy Grounds. A church bought the entire building about a year and a half ago, and they've done a wonderful job turning the ground floor into a coffee house with a little stage, books on the wall, a serving bar, round tables and some comfortable chairs. I've stopped in a few times because we like to know our neighbors, and the minister has been down to our office once or twice. Our conversations have been innocuous because we haven't appeared to have much in common, but nothing in our exchanges have rung any warning bells, either.

This weekend, WMA Jobs with Justice posted the following information on the AriseAction listserve. Check out the links.

Shiny moments: my younger daughter and her husband are less than a month away from having a baby. I'll be a grandmother for the second time in twenty-two years! They decided not to know the sex of the baby beforehand-- the way it used to be-- so I'm eagerly waiting to know if I have another granddaughter or my first grandson.

My first granddaughter is from my oldest daughter, and I want to take a moment to say how proud of her. She does closed captioning for the hearing-impaired, reads non-stop, and is one of the most well-informed and solidly progressive people I know. This fall, she's given it her best shot to qualify for the Boston women's roller derby team! She's always loved to skate and had a childhood dream of being on a team that apparently persisted somewhere in the back of her mind. So when she heard the team was recruiting, she became "fresh meat" and practiced twice a week with other fresh meat and with the "dames." She made the first cut but not the second, which is almost OK, because she says she's never been so sore and bruised in her life. (She got a black eye the first week of practice.) But she's made lots of new friends and will stay involved with the team.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Chris Matera had this article published in the North Adams Transcript this week, and has given me permission to reprint. It sure helps to get the big picture as we engage in our local struggles. Thanks, Chris!

We need to get serious about global warming and clean energy, but wood-burning biomass incinerators are a false solution that will worsen our problems, not help solve them.

While the word "biomass" conjures up pleasant images, the promotion of this old caveman incinerator technology as "clean and green" is a colossal "greenwash" by the timber, trash and energy industries attempting to cash in on lucrative public "clean" energy subsidies.

One can become quite cynical to learn that our "green" energy subsidies are being directed to cutting forests and burning them in dirty biomass incinerators instead of promoting genuinely clean energy solutions such as solar, geothermal, appropriately scaled and located wind and hydro and, most importantly, conservation and efficiency.

Here is a biomass reality check:Contrary to industry claims, biomass energy does not reduce carbon dioxide emissions; it increases them. Wood-burning biomass power production emits 50 percent more CO2 per unit of energy than coal. That is not a typo, and is based on numbers from the proponents’ own reports. Since burning wood is so inefficient, burning living trees is actually worse than burning coal. Brand new electric biomass power plants emit about 3,300 lbs/MWh of carbon dioxide, while existing coal plants emit 2,100 lbs/MWh, existing natural gas plants about 1,300 lbs/MWh and new natural gas plants about 760 lbs/MWh.
Not only is wood burning biomass energy worse than fossil fuels for CO2 emissions, but it also usually emits higher rates of conventional pollutants such as particulates, CO, NOx and VOCs than fossil fuels. The McNeil biomass plant near Burlington, Vt., touted by biomass proponents, is the No. 1 air-pollution source in the entire state of Vermont and emits 79 pollutants. See: www.planethazard.com.

In short, "clean" energy does not come out of a smokestack.

Wood-burning energy production is extremely inefficient. A typical power plant burns at about 23 percent efficiency, so 77 percent of the trees cut go up in smoke, without producing any energy. This means enormous amounts of forest need to be cut to provide tiny amounts of power. This large fuel demand will lead to increased clear-cutting of forests, which even the forestry consultant to the proposed Pownal facility admitted to at the Sept. 25 public meeting.

It is very important to realize that the vast majority of the fuel for the biomass energy would come from living trees, not "waste" wood as pitched to the public. The industry includes trees that they call "junk" or "low grade" in its definition of "waste" simply because they are a species, or have characteristics, that do not provide high commercial market value. However, to the rest of us, and to nature, these are still valuable trees that filter the air and water, sequester carbon, maintain the soil, attract tourists and provide fish and wildlife habitat.

The proposed Pownal facility alone would require nearly 600,000 green tons of wood per year for electricity generation and pellets. This is about 150 percent of the entire public and private annual timber harvest in Massachusetts and yet would produce only about 2 percent more power for Vermont.

Achievable and more economical conservation and efficiency measures could reduce our energy use by 30 percent. "Phantom" loads alone -- for example when our TV is plugged in but not on -- account for 5 percent of our electricity use and could easily be avoided by using power strips.

While making better use of the energy we already have would have the least impacts, the damage is already done with Hydro Quebec, so utilizing this available energy source would have minimal new impacts in comparison to increased cutting and burning of our important forests.

There are also other large biomass-burning proposals in Fairhaven, Ludlow and Springfield, Vt., as well as Pittsfield, Greenfield, Russell and Springfield, Mass., that all have overlapping wood demands which would require cutting forests at more than 300 percent of today’s cutting rates and would seriously threaten our forests.

Tourists and recreationists come from around the world and support a lucrative tourism industry in order to visit New England’s "Golden Goose" -- our forests, in their glory. They will not come to see them cut down, chipped, burned and belched into the atmosphere in industrial burners.

The reason these biomass incinerators are popping up like mushrooms on a rainy Seattle day is because of the enormous public subsidies being directed their way. A typical incinerator like the one in Pownal is eligible for a $50 million to $80 million federal cash grant if it can break ground by Dec. 31, and about $20 million in annual public subsidies. Imagine all the genuinely clean jobs and energy that could instead be created with that money by installing solar panels and insulating homes. Rather than 25 to 50 or so destructive jobs cutting and burning forests, the $20 million annual subsidy alone could instead be used to support 400 clean and green jobs at $50,000 per year.

In summary, at this time of polluted air, global warming, already stressed forests and bankrupt governments, there is no reasonable argument for forcing taxpayers to subsidize the construction of new dirty, carbon-belching, forest-degrading biomass incinerators, for minimal amounts of power that we don’t need, just to further enrich already wealthy out-of-state investors.

These policies will lead to increased clear-cutting, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously draining our public coffers -- the exact opposite of what we need to do right now. "Green" tax-payer subsidies and other incentives should only be directed toward genuinely green technologies that produce clean, non-carbon-emitting energy and local jobs.

Chris Matera is a civil engineer and founder of Massachusetts Forest Watch, a citizen watchdog group formed to protect public forests and promote genuinely "clean" and "green" energy solutions. See: www.maforests.org

Friday, November 26, 2010

Someone commented on my post about pressuring Toys R Us to stop selling toys made with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and wanted to know why we weren't pressuring the toy manufactures rather than the toy distributors. The problem is, 98% of the toys that were tested by the Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ) and
Teamsters Office of Consumer Affairs that tested positive for PVCs were made in China!

Toys R Us promised two years ago to make progress on PVCs, lead and other compunds in their toys. from CHEJ's report:

Toys “R” Us’ Broken Promise: PVC and Organotins Widespread in Toys and Packaging
This investigation found that, despite its commitment more than two years ago, Toys “R”
Us continues to stock and sell an extensive assortment of toys and infant products that are
made of and packaged in PVC. These toys and packaging were also found to contain
organotins. Almost all of these toys were made in China.
Toys that tested positive for PVC include Barbie, “Toys Story 3” Woody and Buzz Lightyear
figures, Disney Princess Royal Giggles doll, Zhu Zhu Pets Hamster Hangout, Nickelodeon’s
Dora the Explorer and Diego figures, Sesame Street Elmo Faucet Cover, Club Penguin figurines,
Imaginext toddler action figures and many others, from dolls and balls, to baby bath time toys
and products, and even My Name Sippy Cups. PVC was also found in toys whose brands are
owned by Geoffrey LLC, a subsidiary.

Read the report and then take action. Aren't we all getting a little sick by corporations profiting at our expense?

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Recently I've been thinking about Lois Gibbs. Remember her and Love Canal? In 1978 Lois found out that her child's school-- in fact, her whole neighborhood-- was built on Occidental Petroluem's toxic waste dump. Three solid years of community organizing eventually got then-President Carter to relocate 900 families from her community. That gives me a little hope. We're only a year and a half into our organizing here in Springfield, Massachusetts to stop construction of a biomass incinerator. The tough part is we're doing everything right and so far, it hasn't seemed to make a difference-- maybe that's just the way it goes until we win. We do have quite a few more cards up our sleeve. Nothing, from lawsuits and lobbying to direct action and civil disobedience, is off the table.

On Friday, we got the bad news from the Massachusetts Environmental Protection Agency (oxymoron) that the agency is not going to require a full Environmental Impact Report (EIR) of Palmer Renewable Energy's incinerator proposal-- this in spite of more than 450 comments submitted by area residents asking for the full study. You can read the decision here. This could put the proposal on a very fast track-- I think they only need an air permit from the state to start breaking ground-- that and the continued approval of the Springfield City Council.

OK, I'm scared and fighting mad. Our group, Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield, isn't against this plant simply because of some intangible though legitimate fear of global warming. We're talking about our quality of life-- indeed our very lives themselves.. One in seven children in Springfield has asthma. Our kids' asthma rate is higher than Worcester and Boston, and 65% higher than the state average. We know that air pollution affects everyone, especially those with heart and lung disease. Hospital admissions climb on bad air days. And a new study from Boston Children's Hospital finds a strong correlation between air pollution and and an increase in Type 2 Diabetes, even when all other factors are accounted for and even when the pollution is within EPA guidelines and acceptable limits..

And herein lies the problem: "Acceptable limits" are not the same as safe limits; what's acceptable to the state doesn't mean people won't get sick in Springfield. I got the bad news about no EIR from David Cash, Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. He kept talking about how the pollution from the plant-- which is undisputed-- was within acceptable threshholds, did not violate regulations, blah blah blah, and besides that, the developer intend to give $2 million to the city, mostly for "mitigation strategies!"

And what is a mitigation strategy, you might ask? That's where the developers get to make your child sick while paying for heath education for somebody else's child. It's supposed to all come out in the wash. But even if it were true that the negative health impacts from this plant could be offset by two million bucks, which I don't believe for a minute, we have no power over which children and adults get sicker and which get better. Hey, we don't live our lives on paper and in statistics, we're real people here.

Cash said I could ask him any questions I liked, but I have emailed him three times with these two questions and so far have had no response:

Forgetting about allowable limits, regulations, etc., can you say unequivocally that this plant will cause no harm to anyone who lives in the Springfield area? Yes or no.

If the answer to the first question is no, can you say unequivocally that any negative health impact will be entirely offset by PRE's mitigation strategy? Yes or no.

One issue MEPA clearly doesn't have a handle on is the cumulative effect of pollution. Stopping biomass incinerators isn't just a Springfield fight; residents of Greenfield and Russell have been fighting off plants, too. And it's not just Massachusetts-- tonight we heard from a group in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, which is fighting a plan by the same developers to burn 900 tons of tires a day to produce energy! Check out Crawford Area Residents for the Environment. The woman who contacted us from their group said that looking at our group's website was like looking in the mirror.

So what do we do next? We're looking at some legal strategies, but our big focus for the moment is on the Springfield City Council, which has the power to stop this plant by revoking its original permit. I've heard from several councilors, as well as from Mayor Sarno, that it's all in the state's hands. Well, the state has dropped the ball. I wrote about the last, very disappointing city council meeting, but the next meeting, on December 13, will be significant if not decisive. City Councilor Mike Fenton and several others are sponsoring a resolution calling for a public hearing, but at this point, with PRE now on the fast track, I think we're going to need something a lot stronger, something that actually stops PRE from breaking ground before the end of December.

In June of 2009, maybe fifty people (most in the city administration) knew about PRE's incinerator proposal. Now thousands of people know, and 99.9% oppose it. But now is not the time to oppose the plant just in your head. Call city hall at 787-6000 and ask for the mayor's. Call your ward councilor and all the at-large councilors-- you can get their numbers on the city council's webpage. Call Helen Caulton-Harris, Health and Human Services Director, at 787-6740, and tell her to find a way to stop this. Call Secretary of Environmental and Energy's Ian Bowles' office-- whosae decision it was nmot to require an environmental impact report, at. 617.626.1000. And Call the Governor's office-- 617.725.4005, 888.870.7770 (in state).

Most important, turn up at City Council on Monday, December 13, and let your councilors know it's time to stand up for the people of Springfield. And if you want to come to our planning meetings, let me know. The more of us fighting, the more likely we are to win.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Wired Science has an update on the White Nose Syndrome that is decimating the brown bat population in New England and elsewhere. I first wrote about this a year and a half ago and the news isn't getting any better. More than one million bats in 14 states and two Canadian provinces now report infestation. New York has lost more than 90% of their brown bat population.

Bats get a bad rap. They eat tremendous amounts of insects and help pollinate plants. And really, they are a sight to behold at sunset. Check out this amazing video from from Austin, Texas.

Greenpeace has an online petitionto Entergy, telling the big company to shut down Vermont Yankee.
the people in Vermont don't want this aging plant to continue to operate, especially as it continues to have problems leaking radioactive material into the environment. Earlier this month, the plant reopened after a spill of radioactive water.

The Shut It Down Affinity Group will keep on organizing and keep on getting arrested until the plant is closed. Their most recent action was in September and they're due back in court on November 23rd. Good friend and Arise member Ellen Graves is part of this affinity group, as well as two Vermonters, Nina Swaim, 72, of Sharon and Martha Hennessey, 55, of Weathersfield and Massachusetts residents Paki Wieland, 67, and Frances Crowe, 91, of Northampton; Hattie Nestel, 71, and Marcia Gagliardi, 62, of Athol. I thought I'd posted about them previously, but looking back, it was actually in the Arise newsletter , not here.

So feast your eyes on these wonderful women with their wonderful tee shirts, and then take action to support their work. They're doing it for all of us.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

I won't hold my breath just yet, but there's a good possibility we have finally stopped Palmer Renewable Energy's biomass incinerator.

A quick recap: more than two years ago, Palmer Renewable Energy made a proposal to Springfield City Council and the East Springfield Neighborhood Council about the wonderful benefits of their energy-producing incinerator. Both councils fell for it-- city council liked the jobs and the the taxes; the neighborhood council liked the half million in "community benefits" PRE would contribute to the neighborhood.

It took about eight months for some of us in the community to find out about the plant, and, as soon as we educated ourselves about the pros and cons, we were against it. Springfield's air quality is bad enough already, why make it worse? Why have more kids with asthma and more adults with lung and heart disease? We formed a group, Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield, and turned out more than 300 people at a public hearing to oppose the state giranting an air permit.. We got the state to agree to a health impact assessment for Springfield (still to happen). We pushed the mayor, we pushed the city council, we held forums, we flyered the community, you name it, we did it.

A couple of months ago, PRE made a move that 1) I think they felt was necessary and 2) I think they thought would help get their plant approved: they decided not to burn primarily construction and demolition debris, but instead to burn wood trimmings. I think they didn't want to wait 6 months for the state to conduct a study on the impact of burning C & D.

Instead, their decision opened doors for us. PRE had to file an amended permit, which means we could submit comments on the Notice of Project Change to the state, and more than 400 of us did. PRE has to go back before city council, which means we could let the new council know that people don't want this incinerator. Through dint of our hard work, seven, possibly eight councilors have now expressed opposition to the plant and will be letting PRE know that when PRE returns to the council. . And PRE had to go back to the East Springfield Neighborhood Council, where people in the neighborhood now know a lot more about the dangers of the plant than they did when the neighborhood council first voted approval.

When our group found out that PRE had to go back to East Springfield for approval, we asked Kathy Brown if we could get on the neighborhood council's agenda before PRE. We are set to present our case on December 7.

Then we found out, from an East Springfield resident, that PRE was appearing before the neighborhood council this month, this past Tuesday!! One of our members called Kathy Brown and was told that the East Springfield Neighborhood Council had already voted against PRE's new proposal. And why hadn't they told us? Five STIS members went to the meeting anyway, flyered the attendees and debated PRE executives and lawyer.

Now, it's been my understanding that this project can't move forward without the approval of the East Springfield Neighborhood Council. So is the project dead? Or will PRE find a way around this vote? I've put a call into City Soliciter Ed Pikula, but haven't heard back yet. But is this the end for PRE?

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

This is so cool. Made by GreenSangha and New Message Media from California, it was released the same day that the LA County Board of Supervisors vote in favor of a plastic bag ban. Please pass it along!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Congress is headed for the biggest gridlock in decades, and there's absolutely no forward momentum to grow the economy and get folks back to work. Yet somehow, the budget deficit has come to be seen as the biggest problem facing this country, and that's an impossible task, right?

Today's New York Times has an interactive feature that allows the reader to take a stab at solving the budget deficit. Try it here. And then if you want to see how I solved the deficit, you can go here.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

I lived in the same house for thirty years and it was supposed to be mine someday-- another post, another time-- but that dream fell apart and three times I experienced the shame and terror of having men in suits stand outside what I thought of as my house and bid on the mortgage in public auction.

Today the No One Leaves Coalition hit the streets for the first time and brought the bad news of foreclosure to forty Springfield residents. We got the foreclosure notices from the Springfield newspaper and other public documents.

"Do you know that the house you live in is being foreclosed by the bank?" Some did; most didn't. A few people didn't open their doors; some houses were already empty.

But we weren't only bringing bad news, we were also bringing information about what it means to be a tenant of the bank-- whether as renter or former homeowner-- and inviting people to a meeting to find out more about their rights-- and, for the homeowners, maybe a chance to buy their home back from the bank.

We're modeling our work on the excellent model created by Boston's City Life/Vida Urbana. Check out the video to find out more, and if you want to get involved in helping bank tenants stand up for themselves, call Arise for Social Justice at 413-455-3829.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

You're a homeless, hard of hearing First Nation woodcarver, somewhat inebriated, walking down Howell Street in Seattle on a sunny August afternoon. You're carrying a stick of wood that your next totem is hidden inside of, and a closed carving knife. You are completely unaware that you are about to die.

On August 31, John T. Williams was shot by Officer Ian Birk four times in the side. He died at the scene. An inquest is pending and there are many unanswered questions. Birk says he saw a man with a knife and shouted three times to drop the knife. But the knife was found in a closed position and a knifemaker says the knife cannot close by itself. At first Birk said Williams approached him but later changed his story. Did Williams ever even hear Birk yelling? With four shots in the side, Williams certainly wasn't facing Birk. You can read more at Seattle Times.

Seattle's Street Newspaper, Real Change, has been following William's story and the story of other members of Williams family, who are still being harassed by the Seattle police. It's a sad and infuriating story you can read here.

Jeez, as if our kids aren't under enough assault as it is...Here's an easy action from Friends of the Earth:

In 2008, Toys R Us promised to reduce PVC plastic, phthalates, and lead in children's and infant’s toys. But the fact of the matter is that Toys R Us has not kept its promise. It has failed to label toxics in its toys and has failed to get PVC, the poison plastic, out of the toys it sells.

Independent product testing has confirmed that Toys R Us is selling toys made with PVC. Chemicals released in PVC’s lifecycle have been linked to chronic diseases in children, impaired child development and birth defects, cancer, disruption of the endocrine system, reproductive impairment and immune system suppression.

There is no safe way to manufacture, use or dispose of PVC products. As the largest specialized toy retailer in America, with more than 800 stores nationwide, Toys R Us has the economic power to eliminate toxics from the toy supply chain entirely.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

As Springfield City Council and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts consider the fate of a proposed incinerator , they (and the rest of us) might want to pay attention to two studies released this year and summarized in Science Daily.

The plant, if built, will emit about 600 pounds of lead a year into the atmosphere.

"The first study compared children formally diagnosed with ADHD to controls, and found that the children with the disorder had slightly higher levels of lead in their blood. This study showed a link only between blood lead and hyperactivity/impulsivity symptoms, not inattention. But a second study showed a robust link between blood lead and both parent and teacher ratings of ADHD symptoms, including both hyperactivity and attention problems. In both studies, the connection was independent of IQ, family income, race, or maternal smoking during pregnancy." Science Daily.

Tonight, Springfield MA City Council had an opportunity to really take a positive step to protect Springfield's environment-- and they didn't. Well, I shouldn't say they; in the end it came down to Councilor Rooke's refusal to suspend the rules so that the council could vote on asking the state for a full Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on a biomass incinerator proposed for our city.

My blood is still boiling, so let me see if I can summarize the sequence of events.

We, members of Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield, know that the plant's proponents have to come back before City Council for approval of their amended permit. We don't know when that will happen, but figure soon, as they have strong financial incentive to break ground before December 31. So we signed up for the speak-out at tonight's council meeting, as part of our strategy to win a majority of councilors over to our position.

Coincidentally, tomorrow at 5 pm. is the deadline for commenting on the incinerator's plan to the state, and for requesting a full EIR.

Meanwhile, some ward councilors-- Mike Fenton, E. Henry Twiggs and Melvin Edwards-- agreed to co-sponsor a resolution asking the City Council to hold a public hearing, in conjunction with the Springfield Public Health Council, about the health impacts of Palmer Renewable Energy's (PRE) proposed plant. But Counciklor Fenton let us know that he was unable to meet the deadline for getting the resolution on tonight's agenda. Well, OK, there's still next month.

Then we got an email from At-Large Councilor Thomas Ashe, saying he intended to propose two resolutions tonight, one of which would call for a full EIR. Even though it was past the agenda deadline, he could do so by asking for a suspension of the rules to bring the resolution. However, if challenged by even one councilor, the resolution could not proceed.

A dozen of us spoke at the speak-out that precedes the formal meeting. The two most difficult councilors to engage, Councilor Rooke and Councilor Kateri Walsh, didn't come in for the speak-out so they missed everything we had to say, including a couple of announcements about the EIR deadline.

Next came a long, frustrating and fascinating council meeting. Ah, the personalities! The politics! Enough said.

Finally, after all council business was finished-- 10 pm.!-- Councilor Ashe stood up and asked for a suspension of the rules for the EIR resolutuion. Then Councilor Rooke stood up, and said that he was actually co-sponsoring Ashe's resolution, but that he had just, five minutes before the council meeting began, received a copy of a report from City Attorney Ed Pikula. In that report, it said that PRE was not legally required to have an EIR done. Therefore, he wanted time to digest the report before he went forward. the motion was defeated and the council was adjourned.

First I got to Tom Ashe, who said to me, "Don't worry, we'll get it on next month's agenda."

"You can't get it on next month's agenda, not this resolution anyway, because the deadline for comments is tomorrow." he looked taken aback. (Of course he can submit a different resolution next month, but, as I say, a lost opportunity.)

Then Jesse Lederman and I got Councilor Rooke's attention. He tried to explain that he (and other councilors) had just gotten a report on PRE's plan, (commissioned by the city from some environmental firm and paid for by PRE) and that it said, right there in the report, that PRE wasn't legally required to have an EIR.

Well, of course an EIR is not required; if it was, we wouldn't be asking for one, would we?

"I can't decide on this in five minutes," Councilor Rooke said.

"Well, that didn't stop you the first time PRE came to the council," I said, being pissier than I should, but just SO frustrated. Of course, Councilor Rooke had missed my presentation at the speak-out, where I mentioned our group had watched a video of the city council meeting where PRE got their first permit from the city. At that hearing, former Councilor Mazza-Moriarty had tried to slow things down, mentioning that she'd only gotten a copy of a hundred page document 45 minutes before the meeting. She'd tried to send it to committee, where practically everything goes, but was voted down.

So, what next? On to the next strategy. That's what people committed to the community do. And if I look at the situation objectively, we're probably not in bad shape.

Plusses: We now have ten of thirteen councilors who have expressed some form of opposition to PRE's incinerator. I didn't say anything irredeemable to Councilor Rooke or any other councilor. And clearly, as we say in community organizing, we have raised the profile of the issue.

Minuses: PRE hasn't made their presentation to the council yet, and they'll certainly downplay the health impacts of the plant while dangling jobs and taxes; councilors could be swayed. Some councilors are not yet as well-educated as they need to be, not only about the issue but also the approval process. And we have no idea what's in the city's report and how thorough and objective it is. (They only had about a week to analyze a 388 page document, and I don't know if the firm had the previous permit application with which to compare the new.)

Monday, November 8, 2010

Last Tuesday, Election Day, dozens of us flyered polling places in Springfield MA, urging voters to call their city councilors and say "NO!" to the wood-burning incinerator being proposed by Palmer Renewable Energy (PRE). By the end of the week we had won over the remaining ward councilors, some of whom were going to sponsor a resolution for the December meeting, and then we received a message from at-large Council Tom Ashe, saying he was going to sponsor two resolutions for tonight-- one calling for a Full Environmental Impact Report of the proposal and the other saying that PRE has to come back to the City Council before their amended proposal is approved again. Of course, PRE has to go back before the council in any case, which maybe Councilor Ashe doesn't know.

More than a dozen of us are signed up for the speak-out portion of the council meeting tonight. We'll be focusing on the health impact a plant like this will have on our community. We didn't expect to stick around for the rest of the meeting, but now that there's actually a resolution, we'll stay and see what happens.

I am not so naive as to think our battle is won-- the developers are smarmy and they'll have plenty to say-- but it's a step in the right direction. I'll post about the results and next steps.

"We are talking about two grand projects in dispute. On the one side is the project of capital and imperialism, which signifies looting, which signifies death, and which signifies all of the false solutions to climate change that we reject entirely.

We assert that we need to change the system and not the climate. We assume the construction of another project: the project of life. A project based on principles that defend life, the Mother Earth, and that is based on another model of social, economic, political and cultural development. That is why we are here."-Itelvina Masioli, a Brazilian leader of the international small farmer movement, La Via Campesina, speaking on April 20, 2010, at the People's World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Ronnie Cummins is attending the summit as a representative of the OCA. Organic Consumers Organization

Woke to a little snow on the ground this morning. It reminds me that on my way to Arise for Social Justice, I'll need to stop at the nearby vacant house and leave some cat food from the bag I carry around in my car-- there's at least one cat living there-- abandoned or always feral? Don't know. I'll pass another two dozen empty houses before I get to Arise, where a meeting is scheduled for the coalition of people and organizations working on a strategy to stop foreclosures. Last week I sent an email to the lead organizer: is there any way we can get hold couple of the houses that are already foreclosed? Five young men (separately, not together) have come into Arise in the last few days, looking for a place to live and a job. No immediate solutions. The Rescue Mission hasn't opened its overflow shelter yet, and when I tell folks about Worthington St. Shelter, I always have to warn them first about the bedbugs. What a choice.

Being homeless is life-threatening but also full of other dangers and indignities. Two weeks ago a 61 year old homeless guy in in Dallas, Texas tried to pay for his meal with a credit card not his own. The owner of the restaurant forced him to strip naked and beat him with a pipe. When the police arrived, they charged the homeless guy but not the owner. Later, however, the crimes against persons unit of the police department investigated and charged the owner with misdemeanor assault. Read more at the Dallas Homeless Network.

In Pheonix, Arizona, a homeless man was run over by a car-- on purpose-- and dragged ten feet. A few minutes before, he'd been accused of stealing a bicycle, which he denied. He's in the hospital, expected to survive, and police are looking for a 4-door gray car.

Two Edmonton, Alberta police officers were disciplined recently for picking up nine homeless people and locking them in the back of the police van for nine hours in sweltering hot weather before dumping them in a residential neighborhood. A third police officer wasn't disciplined because he was only along for the ride. Hey, some version of this happens frequently-- remember the Los Angeles homeless dumps?-- and rarely is there accountability. Mostly Water.

Speaking of Los Angeles, two doctors were arrested on Friday for using mentally ill, homeless people in a scheme to defraud the government. Their employees would find homeless people and bring them to the clinic, where they were subjected to unnecessary procedures, then paid $100 a dumped back into the streets. It's a disgusting story and you can read more at the Los Angeles Times.

If you're a homeless veteran in North Charleston, South Carolina, you may find yourself living in a shelter whose director, Nancy Cook, has managed to double her salary in the last year until it now equals one-third of the shelter's entire revenue.Ms. Cook sounds like a real winner. In 2008, she suggested that "unfit" parents be sterilized. As for the current situation, someone-- a homeless person?-- tipped off the media about Ms. Cook's salary increase. Her response? "We deal with a lot of sick people, and they're just nasty," said Cook, who said she has run Good Neighbor Center for 18 years. "It's par for the course. There is no story here." Post and Courier.

Last but not least, if desperate parents in Indiana follow the advice of some workers from the Family and Social Services Administration, they should dump their severely disabled, autistic or mentally handicapped children off at the nearest shelter. This was the workers' advice in the face of requests for diminishing services. Associated Press.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

One in seven people living on this planet is malnourished even though we have an abundance of food. How does this happen? Take just nine minutes to watch this video and you'll be able to summarize it for others in less than two. Thanks for the tip, Fast Company!

Saturday, November 6, 2010

On October 2, I went to the Annual Fall Party of the National Priorities Project, and, as I might have expected, I left with very mixed feelings.

My longtime friend Jean Grossholtz was being honored, and she honored me with a place at her table. (That meant I didn't have to pay to attend.) I drove up from Springfield to Holyoke's Log Cabin

Jean is the person who deepened my understanding of what forces shape our lives. I met her in the early days of Arise for Social Justice, when she was still teaching at Mt. Holyoke College.

One day when she was visiting Arise she said "Michaelann, you've got to understand what globalization is, because its going to change the face of our world." Thus I had to learn about things like neoliberalism and deregulation, and I began to understand how much corporations control what happens to us.

Through the years she'd pay other visits to Arise, tipping me off to subsets of globalization such as genetically modified food, the World Trade Organization and the coming water wars. All of this was years before any of these topics emerged into the mainstream.

Jean is not only a teacher, she is a hardcore activist and organizer. I'll always be grateful that she made it possible for me to go to Seattle with her for the World Trade Organization demonstrations, where I learned how to avoid tear gas and how to sing "Amazing Grace" with my mouth taped shut. At eighty-one years of age, she's spending a bit more time finishing her memoirs than organizing, but of course that's a relative statement--she just came back from Europe where she met with her large network of fellow activists to talk about immigration policy.

At the table, Jean told us how she was practicing being gracious for the evening-- she hates public recognition but had finally given in to NPP's director, Jo Comerford, another longtime friend of hers. The room was full of NPP supporters and friends of Jean's, and I saw many people I know but don't see often, people I respect and admire, people I love as individuals but am less comfortable with in the aggregate.

Jean was called to the podium to receive the Frances Crowe Award, and then she spoke organizing, social change, and the absolute necessity of our all taking responsibility to create a movement-- words I have heard from her before, but she speaks with such passion and commitment that I am always heartened to hear her.

Then several NPP staffpeople spoke. NPP helps make federal data accessible so that people can understand how our tax dollars are spent. They have a great website which is about to get even better. Without hyperbole, the information is infuriating; if the budget was in the hands of the people, we would make very different decisions. But I remember talking to NPP staff a couple of times about the real power driving legislative decisions. Why was there no discussion about corporations, campaign contributions, and well-heeled lobbyists? And this was years before the Citizens United Supreme Court decision striking down spending limits by corporations and special interest groups working to get a candidate elected or influence public opinion.

NPP's keynote speaker for the evening was Congresswoman Donna Edwards, D-Maryland . She was introduced as someone whose community organizing had helped to bring about the passage of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, so I hoped to hear at least something about community organizing's role in social change.

No such luck. Instead, we were subjected to a very boring and way too long harangue about why it was important to vote the Democratic ticket this year, even though the majority of us were disappointed in the Democrats. Her speech was largely unmemorable, but I do remember her saying, "Who cares what Robert Gibbs has to say about progressives?" Well, as a progressive, I cared, because to me it showed the complete disdain the Obama administration has for those who helped to get him elected. Her other main message was not to support third party candidates, who might spoil the election. Well, screw that, I thought; thanks for helping me decide to vote for Jill Stein and to let the chips fall where they may.

Finally the speech was over and the evening drew to a close. I walked up the hill to retrieve my car and pulled out of the parking lot to head toward my working class city, Springfield. I pretty much had the road to myself as other cars turned left, toward Northampton and Amherst.